Alternative religion, New age spirituality and new religious movements

Ongoing research

At present, I explore emerging forms of alternative religion in the Balkans, encounters between new age spirituality and Islam, and religious change among Albanian migrants, as part of MUSLIM+/- and ALTERNATIVE MUSLIMS, sub-projects of Mobile Muslims/Invisible Islam which I manage together with my colleague Ragnhild J. Zorgati.

Higher education and employment history

Tenured position as associate professor in history of religion at Dept. of Culture Studies and Oriental Languages (IKOS) since 2016.

This volume approaches the UN as a laboratory of religio-political value politics. Over the last two decades religion has acquired increasing influence in international politics, and religious violence and terrorism has attracted much scholarly attention. But there is another parallel development which has gone largely unnoticed, namely the increasing political impact of peaceful religious actors. With several religious actors in one place and interacting under the same conditions, the UN is as a multi-religious society writ small. The contributors to this book analyse the most influential religious actors at the UN (including The Roman Catholic Church; The Organisation of Islamic Countries; the Russian Orthodox Church). Mapping the peaceful political engagements of religious actors; who they are and how they collaborate with each other - whether on an ad hoc basis or by forming more permanent networks - throwing light at the modus operandi of religious actors at the UN; their strategies and motivations. The chapters are closely interrelated through the shared focus on the UN and common theoretical perspectives, and pursue two intertwined aspects of religious value politics, namely the whys and hows of cross-religious cooperation on the one hand, and the interaction between religious actors and states on the other. Drawing together a broad range of experts on religious actors, this work will be of great interest to students and scholars of Religion and Politics, International Relations and the UN.

Introduction How do ‘new’ and ’old’ Islamic actors in contemporary Albania define religious legitimacy, the nation and religious otherness? This chapter uses Olivier Roy’s analytical distinction between accommodationism and neo-fundamentalism as a compass to navigate through Albania’s complex religious landscape by exploring different sets of beliefs promulgated by a selection of Islamic groups (2010).2 These are the Muslim Community of Albania, which represents ‘official Islam’ (Introduction in this volume), and ‘mainstream’ Sunni Muslims, who are typically accommodationist. I also analyse a Sufi subgroup thereof, which is equally accommodationist, but in a slightly different manner. As a neo-fundamentalist counterpoint, I explore the ideas of a competing organisation composed of Salafi imams. Accommodationism means that the bond between religion and a specific territory and culture of origin is tight. In this context, ‘culture’ refers to Albanian historical tradition and the language-based, secular nation-building project engineered by modernising state elites since the early 20th century. Neo-fundamentalism, conversely, is a globalised form of religion that emphasises the gap between faith and culture. As such, it represents a reformatted, exportable form of religiosity, which stands in contrast to cultural ethno-national ways of being Muslim. Neo-fundamentalist religious identity is faith-based, and seeks to ground itself solely upon explicit religious norms, at least in principle. Accordingly, these believers make their religiosity visible through a global uniform of religious markers detached from the surrounding culture. In the Albanian Islamic context, the theoretically informed labels, neo-fundamentalist and accommodationist, roughly correspond to the ‘Albanianist’ versus the ‘Salafi’ forms of Islam. To some extent, this resonates with mainstream distinctions adopted in Albania and in the Balkans (Chapter Five in this volume). A popular Albanian term for Muslims associated with neo-fundamentalist forms of Islam is ‘fanatic’ (fanatik) (Chapter Four in this volume). Accommodationism is commonly related to ‘old’ forms of Islam, which many be deemed as local, rooted, and European as well as tolerant and moderate. Neo-fundamentalism, conversely, refers to certain ‘new’ forms of Islam, i.e. those perceived to be imported, transnational, alien, ‘fanatic’ and a threat to local religious customs. This cultural distinction between what are deemed acceptable and unacceptable forms of Islam is often politicised and securitised (Chapter One in this volume; Barbullushi 2010). As I will show, the association between neo-fundamentalism and violence is not necessarily correct, and the Salafi community under scrutiny here can be defined as pacifist and purist (Wiktorowicz 2006). These two formats, moreover, clash and merge together as different local actors seek to recast and legitimize their respective positions.

In Albania, a religiously pluralist country with a secular constitution, an atheist past and a Muslim majority, the authorities have since the end of Communism promoted Mother Teresa as the “Mother of Albanians” and an emblem of the state. The name, statues and portraits of this ethnic Albanian Catholic nun have become a prominent feature in the public sphere. Based on fieldwork material, Albanian texts and unique statistical data, this article discusses the “motherteresification” of Albania in the period after her beatification in 2003, particularly during the Democratic government (2005–13). It also explores alternative Christian and Muslim interpretations of the symbol in Albania. Both the top-down construction of “Mother Teresa” as a national symbol and the arguments against it demonstrate that secularism remains a core value. By fronting a Christian Nobel Laureate, this EU-aspiring country signals that it is peaceful and belongs to Europe and the West, a recurrent national concern for over a century and acute after 9/11. Making an ethnic Albanian nun a symbol of a Muslim majority nation thus makes sense.

On 28 November 2012 the Republic of Albania celebrated its centenary as an independent state. Much of this period has been through turmoil, wars, foreign occupation, authoritarianism, Communist dictatorship, and, most recently, contested democracy since 1991. In addition to its many political difficulties, Albania has also been haunted by social and economic problems. Today, the majority would leave the country if they could. Despite the failure to create a functioning welfare state which its citizens consider trustworthy, the Albanian nation-building project is nevertheless a huge success at the symbolic level. Across innumerable divergences and potential sources of tension, today’s Albanian citizens identify, fundamentally and enthusiastically, with the symbolic nation-building project, more than in any other state in the Balkans, apart from Kosovo. One hundred years of constructing, reinforcing, and maintaining a sense of national, language-based, secular unity in the Republic of Albania, with and without dictatorial methods, have resulted in a strong ‘imagined community’.

In the city of Shkodra, the ceremonial use of the so-called kishë-xhami, the “church-mosque” in the Rozafa castle, has been a thorn in the eye between the Catholic Church and the Muslim Community. Apparently the last chapter in the dispute began around 2005 when the Catholic Church in Shkodra organised a mass in the ruins on Saint Stephen’s Day on 26 December. This provoked some representatives of the Muslim Community. At the same time, individuals described as “Wahhabis”, referring to bearded Muslim men with short trousers whom many associate with “Arab” and “foreign” versions of Islam, have been observed performing dawa in the ruins. So, we are faced with at least two different religious claims to the object, one Catholic and one Muslim. In addition, there is a third position: the Albanian state, represented by the State commission for cults, which currently lists it as one of the 201 most important national “cultural monuments/religious objects” and dubs it “Faltorja (kishë-xhami)”, i.e. a “sanctuary” or “prayer chapel”, as well as a “church” and/or “mosque”. With this label, the official definition is at the same time religious, non-religious, Muslim and Christian. The Muslim Community calls it the Sultan Fatihu Mosque, and the Catholic Church, St. Stephen’s Church. In order to emphasise the fact that it is disputed, and that I do not take a stand, I will in the following refer to it by its nickname, the “church-mosque”. The history of the disputed ruins inside the Rozafa fortress in many ways Albania’s religious history in a nutshell, with a pagan-Christian-Islamic-Communist-atheist past which has gone through several stages of sacralisation, secularisation, and resacralisation.

In Romania, a Christian, ultranationalistic movement known as The Legionary Movement has before and after the Communist period called for a national, spritual revolution. Perceiving themselves as front fighters protected by the Archangel, Legionaries endeavour to purify the nation so that it can live in its God-given fatherland. In order to assure national resurrection, Legionaries want to create a “New Man”, understood as a new male. This ideal combines the qualities of a Christian martyr, a working hero, a monk and a militant and as such both complex and ambiguous. In practice, Legionaries have a lot in common with other European “boot boys”. Based on field studies, this article discusses the role of men in this movement: their role models, male bonding, rituals and myths, as well as their concepts of family, brotherhood and blood relations, all with reference to a particular ethnonationalistic, christocentric worldview.

This article explores the organisation and whereabouts of the neo-Legionary movement as it was (re)established in Romania during the 1990s. At this time, a spectrum of groups and individuals defined themselves as Legionary, thereby entering into the tradition of the Iron Guard/the Legion of Michael the Archangel, which was founded by the charismatic “Captain” Corneliu Zelea Codreanu (1899−1938). Based on unique fieldwork conducted during the late 1990s, however, this article shows that these neo- Legionaries were not unified within a single organisation. Instead, they formed a loosely interconnected network of groups and figures. That is to say, neo-Legionary groups and individuals comprised a loose movement that was characterised by a particular set of references, a shared ideology and symbolism, and a strong family resemblance. Though it had significant ideological structures in common with the inter-war Legion and even mimicked its predecessor’s organisation and rituals to some extent, the neo-Legionary movement of the first post-Communist decade was primarily a protest movement. It put forward a radical religious, social and political critique of Romania’s Communist legacy. Nevertheless, this message was mainly expressed through references to Codreanu’s movement. The neo-Legionaries’ political ideas and activity were influenced by their belief that transcendental forces influence life on earth. Their ideology fuses fascism, ethnic nationalism, anti-Semitism, Romanian folklore, mysticism and an idiosyncratic interpretation of Orthodox Christianity.

For over a century, Albanians have been urged to view religious differences as unimportant. But are they? By conducting an unique set of interviews with representatives of the country's high-ranking clerics, Cecile Endresen tries to answer this question. The clerics speak of an interplay between nation and religion in the their own symbolic universes and expound on such themes as salvation, religious tolerance, historical developments, theological differences, and politics. While embracing national unity and religious tolerance as an overriding ethos, they nonetheless manifest a certain religious rivalry and a sense of unjust treatment. As such, they appear to contradict their own claims; at the same time, they are proud to be Albanian and intent on upholding national unity. Their perception of what it means to be "Albanian" is invariably related to the question of religious differences and inter-religious relations. Endresen's study investigates religion in multi-religious, post-atheist Albania by highlighting the fluidity and the extreme complexity of relations between nation and religion in Albania - compounded by the effects of global politics, local traditions, religious doctrine, personal experience, regional history, national myths, Communist propaganda, and conspiracy theories.

Endresen, Cecilie (2016). Globalization and religious change: major trends in Islam.
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Religion in the Balkans has rarely been subject to comparative analysis, while local actors and the media tend to represent their religious tradition as unique and/or threatened by ‘foreign religion’. Two main trends in the changing religious landscape go hand in hand with globalisation: neofundamentalism and New Age spirituality.Informed by theoretical concepts from the comparative study of religion, this paper aims to show that contemporary religious change in the Balkans follows a global pattern. At the same time, it takes place in local contexts and is influenced by local ideas and practices. Neo-fundamentalism is, according to Olivier Roy, a globalised form of religion that emphasizes the gap between faith and culture. As such, it represents a reformatted, exportable form of religiosity, which stands in contrast to cultural ethno-national ways of being Muslim. Since neo-fundamentalist religious identity is faith-based, it seeks to ground itself solely upon explicit religious norms, at least in principle. Accordingly, these believers make their religiosity visible through a global uniform of religious markers detached from the surrounding culture. Sometimes, this creates social friction, and in extreme cases, violence and terror. The vast majority of Balkan neo-fundamentalists are nevertheless quietists. However, neo-fundamentalist currents in the Balkans are well known from the security discourse. The influence from New Age spirituality and Western esotericism, conversely, has passed under the radar, although also this religious paradigm shapes local identities and fill them with new meaning. Among young urban Albanians, for example, there is not necessarily any correspondence between their sociological religious identities and the content of beliefs. In contrast to neo-fundamentalists, who want to reinforce religious boundaries, New Age spirituality tends to emphasise an underlying unity. However, it may also entails a lot of conspiracy theories, and e.g. ethnic or racist ideologies are often underpinned by New Age pseudoscience. In different ways, both neo-fundamentalism and New Age spirituality are intimately connected with individualisation, search for authenticity and fragmentation of religious authority. Moreover, theyhave a big influence on the way people in the Balkans are starting to think about religion, science, politics, the world around them, and how they interact with it.

Mother Teresa, perhaps the most iconic nun in the world, was just declared a saint. But why is she promoted as the “Mother of the nation” in Albania, a secular nation with a Muslim majority?

Endresen, Cecilie (2016). "The pope in Balkan conflicts", panel The Pope: Relocation and Contestation in Local and Global Spheres of Meaning (chair).
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The pope in Balkan conflicts: Sometimes the reception of the pope suggests that many non-Catholics perceive him not only as a religious leader, but as their religious leader, or at least as a powerful VIP whom various communities can use to promote their interests. During Pope Francis’ recent visits to Bosnia, Albania and Kosovo, countries notorious for their irreconcilable political climate, the pontiff was unconsciously drawn into several local conflicts. His message was one of peace, reconciliation and fraternity, but the multi-layered, semi-hostile rhetoric of local political and religious leaders immediately involved the pontiff in local blame games, in a manner that both highlighted ethnic and religious cleavages and possibly reinforced them. One example was when the Episcopate of the Kosovo Catholic Church, a de facto ethnic Albanian congregation, claimed that “the Roman papacy has always been on the side of the Albanian people”. This construes the pope as a defender of Albanian national interests against Orthodox Serbs and urges the Vatican to recognise Kosovo’s independence. Serbia’s president Tomislav Nikolić, conversely, hints that the recognition of Kosovo will endanger its Christians, i.e. the Serbs. Curiously, the Serbian Orthodox side also used the pontiff as an ally against Catholic Croats while simultaneously purporting to bridge the gap between the Western and the Eastern Churches. Less than an hour by plane from Roma, the pope’s presence thus means something else than he probably intended. Panelbeskrivelse: The Pope: Relocation and Contestation in Local and Global Spheres of Meaning (Chair: Cecilie Endresen) The pope is on the move. From different theoretical and methodological perspectives, this session employs the physical and symbolic relocation of the pope to reflect upon religious change in a cross-cultural perspective. Where does he go, to whom does he belong, and how is he interpreted in different webs of meaning? The pope is a powerful leader of a global religious community of 1.2 billion people worldwide, making him an important figure both within and beyond the tradition he formally represents. The pope travels to new places, is online, and acquires new roles and functions in a range of religious and secular contexts, being cast, for example, as pilgrim, environmentalist, illiberal reactionary, revolutionary anti-capitalist, the spiritual leader of the West, ecumenist, Crusader, Antichrist, or as a sign of the end times. Our working hypothesis is that the intensified “papal mobility” over the last decades, spatially and symbolically, reflects an ongoing relocation of religion, related to globalisation and new forms of interconnectedness.

This paper explores Islam-oriented ideas promulgated by a number of adherents of “Pelasgian” theories, a multifaceted Albanophonic discourse based on conspiracy theories, rejected knowledge and an esoteric impulse. A tenet is that modern Albanians through their “Pelasgian” ancestry and language possess the key to recover a lost wisdom tradition, which is contrasted with Others’ religious “fanaticism”. This Pelasgian Ur-Religion is well preserved in Albanian culture, above all in one’s own religious heritage, which is endowed with global and cosmic significance. The backdrop is secularist, under-siege nationalism, and current visions of European integration and Western recognition. A main inspiration is 19th-Century efforts to refashion the Sufi Bektashiyya tradition into a kind of pantheist, pagan-Christian pro-Western Islam. “Pelasgian” interpretations of Islam are idiosyncratic and unorganized, often with pantheist, panentheist or polytheist twist and a neopagan character, with elements from UFO religions and an increasing similarity with New Age in the West.

The paper discusses the role of nation and culture, and influence from nationalist culture the way different groups interpret religion. Different Christian and Islamic cases in Albania and Romania show that the way various groups conceptualise the nation and national culture has a deep impact on their interpretation of religion and theological matters, and vice versa.

In Greece, a shift from Islam to Christianity seems to be taking place among migrants from Albania. Most of the Albanians with a Muslim background use Greek Orthodox names – which makes the Albanians refer to them as ‘Jorgot’ (‘the Iorgos’). Many become ‘Greeks’ in one way or the other by suppressing or gradually loosing their Albanian identity and language. The in-between ethnic and religious identities are extremely complex on the individual level. Some of the informants display Christian paraphernalia or convert due to social pressure, but are proud to be Muslim. Others feel Christian but are not baptised, while many say they are both Christian and Muslim. Albanians who have a Christian background or are defined as Greek minority by Greece are not necessarily more pro-Greek. A Greek-Orthodox ‘pin code’, as the migrants coin it, makes life a bit easier in the Greek society and dissociates the person from the ‘bad’ Albanians. A new identity is also also a fresh start, a narrative escape from a homeland which has failed. However, it is also a response to ideologies that have constructed Muslims as illegitimate in Europe or the EU as Christian. This identity-juggling taps into a variety of visions of nationhood, culture, modernity and belonging, in Albania as well as in Greece and in Europe. However, it seems unknown to others than Albanians and Greeks and is unexplored in research. My theoretical approach to identity, symbol, nation, ethnicity and religion is constructivist with focus on symbolic boundaries, and my fieldwork material consists of dozens of in-depth interviews with migrants from Albania. The religious and ethnic boundary negotiations in the interviews serve as a snapshot of a situation or process and will be analysed in a wider historical and political context: 1. the post-Ottoman de-islamisation of Greece and Southeast Europe, 2. the legacy of Albanian secularist nationalism and atheist communism, 3. the nationalist construction(s) of ‘Albanians’ and ‘Greeks’ as oppositions, 4. European integration.

The Norwegian terrorist Anders Behring Breivik who in July 2011 killed 77 people has in his infamous ”manifesto” and during the trial provided detailed descriptions of his so-called pre-emptive measures to defend the Norwegian people and European Christendom from ”deconstruction”. Breivik’s primary target was the ”enemy within” and his ideology is clearly shaped by a contemporary Norwegian context, in addition to a usual right-wing extremist brand of Old Norse mythology, white supremacism and Islamophobia. However, his cut-and-paste ideology also draws on Freemasonry, templar mythology and Japanese nationalism, as well as anti-Muslim Serbian-Orthodox nationalism and Sayyid Qutb, the Muslim Brotherhood, and al-Quaida, which Breivik openly admires. To support his view that Islam and Christendom are indeed in a state of war, Breivik has even called notorious Serbian war criminals and Norwegian Islamists as witnesses. This paper endeavours to disentangle the millenarianisms and conspiracy theories appropriated from Serbian-Orthodox and Islamist discourses. It also analyses the steps of his end-time scenario, the ”final conflict”, supposed to culminate in 2083 when Europe will be cleansed of its last Muslim. The argument is that Brevik’s worldview can be analysed as a kind of ”palingenetic myth”, a characteristic of millenarian nationalism, and its religious dimension is highly syncretic.

Endresen, Cecilie (2012). Same, but different? ”God”, Creation and Judgement in different nationalist contexts.
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Orthodox Christianity in Southeast Europe has often been intertwined with various nation-building projects. Realities on the ground reflect conceptualisations of ”God” and his relationship to humankind and the world. This paper analyses ”God” in two different Orthodox contexts and shows that it is a flexible emic category, highly contextual, and often represents values held by a community. In certain ultra-nationalistic undercurrents of Romanian Orthodoxy (românismul, legionarismul), nations are perceived as ontologically distinct ethnic essences, created by God, which will face the Day of Judgement as a collective. Such theology is part of an ambition to create a new, glorious Christ-like Romanian nation, envisaged as a monoethnic, Orthodox Christian state, purified of Satanic forces represented by minorities and modernism. This worldview has a strong emphasis on Christology and theosis, deification. So does the discourse on God in Albania’s autocephalous Orthodox Church, a tradition influenced by secularist nationalism in which Muslim, Catholic and Orthodox Albanians are urged to discard religious divisions. Here the clergy believe that all men are created equal and that ethnicity and possibly also religious affiliation may ultimately be irrelevant for salvation. While the Romanian and Albanian communities in question seem to agree on God’s essence, their interpretations of his will and work are are completely different.

Endresen, Cecilie (2010). Is the Albanian’s religion really ”Albanianism”? Religion and nation according to Muslim and Christian leaders in Albania.
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The project is an investigation of what the nation means to the people who professionally represent exactly what the Albanians in more than a hundred years have been urged to disregard: religion. The focus is the interplay between nation and religion in the clerics’ symbolic universes. Their conceptualisations of nation are imbued with religion, and vice versa. The study therefore challenges the nationalist axiom that religious differences do not matter to Albanians. The project is based on fieldwork and consists of 27 in-depth interviews conducted in Albanian (2003-2006), mainly with high-rank representatives from the Muslim Community (including small Sufi orders); the Bektashi Community; the Roman Catholic Church, and the Orthodox Autocephalous Church. Many of these leaders were political prisoners during Communism. Both national and religious identities and communities are analysed as contextual, relational, and imprecise symbolic constructions. The clerics’ discourse on the past, salvation, “religious tolerance”, theological differences, mixed marriages and graveyards, disputed symbols, material resources, political influence, etc., is analysed. This reveals that concepts of “Albanianness” are invariably related to the question of religious differences and inter-religious relations. The clerics identify alternately with Albanians, the state, “religion”, the religious Community or a subgroup of it, and the global religious community. The relationship between nation and religion is tremendously complex and fluid, influenced by globalisation, local traditions, religious doctrine, personal experience, regional history, national myths, communist propaganda, foreign mission, studies abroad, and conspiracy theories. A set of myths discernable in the material express national unity as well as religious rivalry and a sense of unjust treatment. As such, they problematise the tension between religious and national identities. While promulgating a particularly inclusivist interpretation of religion and defining religious tolerance as a divinely sanctioned principle, the clerics at the same time disclose attitudes which contradict their claims that religious differences are unproblematic.